Can I find happiness with a wife who hates me?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

These women were old, time had softened them, they had learnt something from loss, helplessness, loneliness; they knew that almost anything can happen to anybody. They were kinder than when they were young.

From Someone At A Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1893-1966)

DEAR BEL

I have been married for 41 years and now there is a crisis in our relationship which is also adversely affecting our daughter, who is in her mid-20s, and our 13-year-old grandson.

Our older married daughter went through such troubled times she gave up looking after her son and he has been living with us for the past 18 months.

My younger daughter, I suppose, suffers from agoraphobia, although not diagnosed. I put this label on her because she has always lived with us, has no social life and has not worked since leaving school eight years ago. She rarely goes out and then only with us. She has her own business, which she operates over the internet.

I have just retired and am finding it difficult to adjust, mainly because of the constant petty arguments with my wife.

For the past three years I have been taking (and will be for the foreseeable future) antidepressants. I have received counselling through my previous occupation and the NHS (problem-solving CBT). I can’t stop worrying about our marriage, family life, both daughters and my grandson.

My wife has terrible mood swings and is very unhappy. Her way of dealing with her anger is to take it out on me, mainly, and occasionally on our grandson.

She has lost faith in many things, including herself and the church, which she attended regularly. She is in a rut and doesn’t have any real outlet other than meeting friends for coffee twice a week.

She says that she hates me and wants to get away from me. I feel she constantly goads me to make this happen. I do not hate her, I love her, but her behaviour is increasingly pushing me towards what she wants.

The situation feels fairly bleak, but when calm (usually on weekends or days away) we have enjoyed each other’s company enormously. At present the highs are very high and the lows very low.

My wife stopped working more than 30 years ago when she started a family and didn’t go back to work. She has sacrificed her life for her family and now seems to resent this, blaming everything (mainly me) for her unhappiness. I have suggested she consult a doctor, but she is dead against this.

I fear that if I leave her, my daughter and grandson will suffer. Also I fear for myself — will I be able to cope?

To be honest, I just want a quiet life, but above that I want my wife, daughters and grandson to be happy. Any advice?

The sadness, the confusion and the fear within your email is clear — and also very distressing. It is easy to see why you feel beaten by general unhappiness.

But what worries me most is the effect on that 13-year-old boy, whose mother’s problems uprooted him to live with you.

This can’t have been easy. He has done nothing wrong and it feels deeply unjust, even cruel, that his life is being made so hard by his mother and his grandparents at a time when puberty will bring such a lot to deal with.

So my first request is that you take some deep breaths, think hard about that boy and attempt to talk seriously to your wife about his emotional welfare. This is urgent: you adults need to place him at the centre of your deliberations. You say (and I believe you) that you want him to be happy. This must be the starting point.

Let’s move on to your daughters. You give no detail about the problems of the older one and are perhaps mistaken to ‘label’ your younger daughter. It may seem strange to you that she is so reclusive; on the other hand, she does run her own online business.

So I suggest that, for the sake of clarity in a confused situation, you ‘park’ both women at the side of your mind, telling yourself that you cannot solve their problems — not just now.

As you are recently retired, I would expect you to feel somewhat at a loss. But the fact that you have been treated for depression while at work, and are still on medication, shows that your anxiety is more than just retirement ‘blues’.

Be sure each day to use any CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) strategies you have learned in the past (make it a ritual at the same time) and think of returning to counselling to continue the process of picking through the thicket of your worries, as I am trying to do here.

One thing I want you to realise: your desire for ‘a quiet life’ is unfeasible. Many men turn away from emotional issues because they just can’t face them and this is something you should talk to your counsellor about.

Obviously, I also think your wife should see a doctor and wonder if she has a special friend you could confide in, to help to persuade her that she does need help. Think about the right person. Was there somebody associated with her church who might be able to talk about her spiritual and mental malaise?

Do you know if she has come through the menopause? Her ‘mood swings’ could certainly be a symptom of a physical condition, made much worse by her unhappiness.

You need to consider this. It gives me some hope that you are still able to enjoy time off together and this one positive thing in your letter must be kept shining in your mind, like a beacon.

On one of those pleasant days out, can you not sit down over a good meal, tell her that you love her and ask her what you can do to make a fresh start? Beg her to go to couple’s counselling. I know this sounds hard, but please do it and don’t give up hope yet. For both your sakes, but especially for that boy.

I gave up my life for a man I barely knew

DEAR BEL

A couple of weeks ago I moved from the UK to Israel to be with my long-distance boyfriend.

I am in my early 30s, he is 40. We met in Israel, where I was on an internship, dated for two months, but then had to separate because of visa issues. Eleven months later, I’ve moved here and will soon have a partner visa.

I feel very insecure: I don’t speak the language, we have different religions, and now I see how our mentalities are different. I feel he hasn’t prepared for my arrival and behaves like nothing has changed for him. I love this man, but there are things about him which I cannot get past, including:

1) I feel he hasn’t done enough to build a solid foundation for a relationship — like helping me with visa issues etc. We briefly discussed getting married, in order to speed up the process, but decided instead to live together first to see how things go.

2) He isn’t helping me much in getting employment. He is very busy and also has a huge family. I feel I can’t count on him sometimes, because he has to help his cousins or his mind is elsewhere.

3) Appearance seems to be very important to him. I am attractive, but to have a long-term relationship with someone I want to have a family with, I don’t think it should be such a big thing.

4) I feel that I have been degraded to the role of ‘the girlfriend’ without a life of my own. Before I came I had a very successful, happy and full life (friends, trips and a well-paid job) and I feel I am missing out by being here.

I haven’t told him yet, but I feel like I am stuck in a prison and on the verge of going back to Britain — yet it will be hard to start afresh with no job and no plan there.

AMY

Readers with complicated problems blighting their lives may be surprised that I have picked yours from the bag. It will be perfectly clear to everybody what you should do, and you know what that is yourself, so why then am I replying?

Because you are only in your early 30s with your whole life ahead and I don’t want you to make a mistake like this again.

But then, honesty makes me add that romantic impetuousness has nothing to do with youth. Plenty of middle-aged people turn their lives upside down on a whim (usually an affair) and then live to regret it, sometimes for ever.

At first reading, my instinct was to make sympathetic noises and to reassure you that these are early days in a foreign land, so hang in there and be patient.

This would certainly have been my advice had you been in a solid relationship followed by a period of long-distance love. But you chose to move to Israel after what was little more than a glorified holiday romance. When you met your boyfriend it must have been such an exciting time: an internship in a dynamic, buzzing environment where you meet a handsome guy and — wham! — love.

Or what you thought was love.

But you didn’t know this man. Not really. Long-distance courtship after a whirlwind romance is a poor substitute for a developing, adult relationship and it was incredibly unwise of you to burn your bridges and leave the life you loved for a new one with a near stranger.

I was inclined towards anti-romanticism long before I became an advice columnist, but then my years in this job have convinced me that the dangerous heart cannot be allowed to rule the head. Let them work together!

You have listed why you want to leave, so there is no need for me to add anything. No doubt your boyfriend is a decent guy (whatever his failings) and therefore it is dishonest not to tell him what you are thinking and feeling.

Both of you are bound to feel you have lost face when you leave, but pride is no reason to continue.

If he is already making you feel rather like arm-candy, what will it be like in five years’ time when you are stuck at home with a baby, feeling just as lonely and alien as ever, while he does his own thing? No, you must talk to him honestly and book a flight.

I don’t see why it will be that ‘hard to start afresh’; you still have friends and contacts and can look for another job and get going again. But you certainly must make a ‘plan’ right now and give yourself a path to follow.

Make a vow not to lurch into the next stage in your life in the way that you lurched into this unsatisfactory relationship and be glad that you didn’t get married — because then you really would be stuck.

AND FINALLY: Hang in there - with hope

It’s thrilling to hear from readers after a while — that is, when the news is good!

I am always touched if you bother to write with updates, especially if I can feel I might have helped in some small way. That is why ‘J’ has made my week.

She begins: ‘In 2013, I wrote and asked your advice about my deep disappointment in my son, who was seeing three women at the same time.’ Naturally, I looked up J’s problem (April 27): she had discovered that her son had three girlfriends on the go at once.

Bel reads all letters, but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.

This deeply shocked and disappointed her — especially as ‘his father gave me much grief by behaving in precisely the same fashion’. J was feeling very worried, disappointed and ‘lost’.

I reassured her, stood up for the young man and ended with these words: ‘Lost? You have to rediscover your path, as the loving mother to a young man who will make many mistakes. How could you “let him go”? But maybe you have to learn to let him be.’

Now J writes happily: ‘He broke up with all three girlfriends and later met a lovely girl at a party. The two are now married with a seven-month-old baby.

‘My son is absolutely besotted with his little girl, and has even switched to freelance work so that he can stay at home as much as possible with his family.

‘What prompted me to write and thank you is a phone call I received from him last night: baby number two is on the way, and we are all rapt with joy! For some reason I thought of you immediately. Bel, thank you and fond regards.’

Even though I’m not sure what J is thanking me so sweetly for (I don’t think she would ever have broken with her beloved son because she disapproved of his sex life) I’m really grateful she shared this happy news. It makes me feel like a family member!

It also gives me the chance to repeat something I often say: ‘You never, ever know what will happen. So hang in there, with hope.’